Might lectins help explain why those who eat more beans and whole grains have less cancer? Lectins are proteins in plants that bind to carbohydrates. Plants use them to defend against microorganisms and some of those useful properties make lectins toxic and hard to digest. Lectins are to blame for the great “white kidney bean incident” of 2006 in Japan. One Saturday evening, a TV program introduced a new method to lose weight. The method was simple: toast some dry, raw, white kidney beans in a frying pan for three minutes, grind the beans into a powder and then dust it onto rice. Within days, a thousand people fell ill, some with such severe diarrhea and vomiting that they ended up in the hospital. Why? Lectin poisoning. Three minutes of dry heat isn’t enough to destroy the toxic lectins in kidney beans. If you don’t presoak them, you need to boil large kidney beans for a …